


With Just A Touch Of My Burning Hand

by syrupwit



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: 5 Things, Catboys & Catgirls, Coffee, Gen, Horses, Robots, Trash Fires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-06 09:29:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20289226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/syrupwit/pseuds/syrupwit
Summary: Four ways that Zim can still win, and one way that he never will.





	With Just A Touch Of My Burning Hand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cricket_aria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cricket_aria/gifts).

> Title from "[Astro Zombies](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZJPPOLBDcc)" by the Misfits, which I personally think is very ZaDR.

The hills were alive with the sound of catboys.

"Mwahaha," Zim cackled. The experiment had been a success. It would be no time at all before all the inhabitants of the City—nay, the country—nay, the _ world _were catboys, catgirls, and nonbinary catpeople. Every single one of them. It was a virus spread by saliva, like zombieism, and also by sharing jewelry.

"Mwahahahahaha!" he continued, as the catpeople descended on the local mall and bought everything at Claire's.

* * *

Zim frowned, pacing back and forth in his living room. The noise in his head drowned out the sound of GIR’s ridiculous cartoons. His brilliant plan had failed! Why? 

Jewelry had seemed like the perfect vehicle for his catperson virus. But it had turned out that some humans didn’t wear it, including Zim’s own most despised and stinky nemesis. Then someone had produced an antidote, and now the humans—except for the Dib, as always—refused to acknowledge the event entirely. It was as if it had never happened.

Zim looked out the window. One of his neighbors was standing in her yard, enjoying the morning air. She poured the contents of a steaming cardboard cup straight down her throat, apparently heedless of the pain it must be causing. 

“I love coffee!” she cried, and tossed the empty cup aside. 

Aha! COFFEE. The majority of adult humans were supposedly dependent on this loathsome, bitter substance. Zim would take the local coffee supply hostage, and then they would have no choice but to bow to his demands.

He made it about two steps past the door of the closest coffee shop before he gagged, fell to the floor, and passed out, overwhelmed by the rich smell of the roasted and ground beans. GIR had to drag him back to the lab and put him in a rejuvenation chamber for a day.

Never mind. Coffee was too dangerous to mess around with. Zim would find another way.

* * *

The flames were reflected in Zim’s eyes, towering ever higher. He laughed with joy, relishing the screams and chaos around him. “Tremble before me, foolish humans! Tremble, and FLEE before your god!” 

“Uh,” said the computer. “You know this isn’t actually happening, right? It’s a simulation.”

“Of course Zim knows. Zim is fully cognizant of reality at all times. Is it so WRONG to harness the power of positive thinking? Huh? Is it? Is it?” 

The computer sighed.

This was Zim’s best plan yet. Every dumpster, garbage can, and wastebasket in a hundred-mile radius had been rigged with one of his Super-Extra-Ultra-Insta-Robo devices. At the stroke of nine o’clock tonight, just as the first fireworks were set off above the Bank Tower to celebrate the City’s hundredth anniversary, Zim would activate the main device. Then the celebrations would be overrun with ferocious, fire-breathing robots powered by PURE TRASH.

Zim laughed again and again, envisioning his glorious victory.

* * *

In the aftermath of the Trash Robot failure, GIR wept.

“Stop. Stop crying! When I said no more robots, I didn’t mean you.” Zim wrung his hands, unsure of how to act. “Computer! Tell GIR what I meant.”

There was no answer. Either the computer was “busy,” as it sometimes claimed to be, or it was deliberately ignoring him. 

Exasperated, Zim tried again to comfort GIR. “I meant… I meant those other robots! All those robots I built! I have built a lot of robots, and they have all FAILED me. All, except for you.”

GIR stopped crying and stared at Zim. “Except for me?”

“Except for you.”

“Except for me?”

“Except for you.”

“Except for me?”

“Except for you.”

“Except for me?”

“Except for you.”

“Wow…” GIR thought for a moment. “I’m the luckiest cowgirl in the whooooole barn!”

“Cowgirl, huh?” Zim smirked. “That gives me an idea...”

* * *

The hills were alive with the sound of cowgirls.

“Excellent,” Zim gloated. “Simply excellent, GIR! With their radioactive lassoes and laser eyes, these cow-women will subdue the population in no time. And every single one of them is loyal to me, only me!”

He had failed to ascertain that a horse show was scheduled to debut downtown on the same day. The cowgirls rushed right past the targets Zim had assigned them to engage in heated grooming discourse with the horses’ owners. By the end of the day, half the cowgirls were in jail and the other half had escaped to the countryside with their new animal friends.

This time, Zim wept.

* * *

Life as an Irken Invader was not always glamorous. For example, sometimes Zim still had to go to hi-skool. The classes were so boring… He fell asleep almost every day.

“Psst, Zim.” The Dib poked Zim in the arm. “I’m onto you.”

“Are you, Dib-stink? Are you?” Zim charged in a heated whisper. “I notice that you have foiled NONE of my most recent, most incredibly brilliant plans. Has your head grown so big that you can’t think anymore, or have you finally decided to surrender your FILTHY planet to my superior being?”

“Nah,” Dib shrugged. “I was watching you, and I knew your plans were all going to fail. I’m talking about that.”

Both followed Dib’s gaze to the bag of candy hidden in Zim’s lap. They knew the rules: no eating in the chemistry lab.

“Gentlemen,” said the teacher. “Something you’d like to share with the class?”

“No, ma’am,” they chorused. Dib took the opportunity to reach in and steal a fistful of candy.

“I’ll get you for this,” Zim hissed. Dib chewed and grinned at him, bits of gummy bear stuck in his teeth.

His adversary had survived for so long. Sometimes Zim wondered how they would fare as allies, whether they would prove even stronger together. It didn't matter, though. Dib was Zim's enemy; Zim was Dib's. That was all they would ever be.

Dib stole another handful of candy.

"YOU!" Zim leapt atop the desk and pointed at Dib's enormous, bloated face. Dib's cheeks bulged with his ill-gotten gains.

They both got detention.


End file.
